On a pier in Marseille in 1942, with desperate refugees pressing to board ships to escape France before the Nazis choked off its ports, an 18-year old German Jewish girl was pried from the arms of her beloved Catholic Frenchman who she promised to marry.Janine and her family fled to refuge in Cuba, which thwarted the young lovers’ dream. She married an American man, started a family, but continued to yearn for her lost love. Her daughter, Leslie Maitland (award winning NYT journalist), set out to find him.The result is this impeccably researched nonfiction account that reads like a novel. It provides a vivid historical portrait of Jewish life in Holocaust-era Germany, France, and Cuba.

Here is a forshbite (that's Yiddish for hors d'oeuvres, one of the most-looked-up words on the Internet) of what's in store for Albuquerque.